Title: The Way That You Use It
Author: Ellie
Rating: PG
Summary: “Before, this would have been a thoughtless act, a show of coordination and grace as he delivered her dinner with one hand and a beer with the other.”
A series of vignettes
Author’s Notes: Thanks to Namaste for a comment she made on my piece “Keep Going” that really got my wheels turning. Title shamelessly stolen from Eric Clapton.

---

“No, like this,” his mother said, placing her hand over his on the piano keys.

It seemed so easy when she did it, fingers gliding deftly over black and white keys to produce glissandos and harmonies and waves of music. He stretched his fingers to their limits, trying to span the octave and strike the notes along with her.

She smiled down at him as she slipped her hand away and he continued dutifully. A furrow of concentration ridged his brow, and his young nimble fingers, though spanning fewer notes, wove more deftly across the keys that her fingers did.

He concluded, fingers resting on depressed keys. For just a second, he looked up at her, returning her smile, before slipping into the next exercise without being told, bouncing syncopation roiling up from the old upright.

“Keep going like that, you’re liable to break a string,” she said, swatting him lightly with her tea towel before returning to the kitchen.

For the rest of the afternoon, he kept at it, notes falling deliberate and easy, perfect.

---

The wooden bat was rough in his palms, not yet worn smooth by thousands of pairs of hands gripping and swinging. He twirled it a bit, let it slip down until it felt just right. Hefting it up to his shoulder, he took a practice swing, then stepped up to the plate.

While not the best batter, he could generally be counted on for a solid single, and was quick enough around the bases to make it count. He squinted across the field at the pitcher, the opposing team’s yellow uniforms fluorescent in the late spring sun.

Prediction he was good at, knew exactly how the ball would hurtle towards him. With easy grace, he swung, sprinting away across the dirt and chalk as soon as he heard the connecting crack.

---

He tapped one foot on the chair in front of him, drawing occasional evil glances from the homely girl occupying it, and furtively angry glances from the proctor, who glared down at both of them as if they were conspiring to bring down the SATs via dirty looks.

Having finished the section ten minutes prior, he wasn’t left with much else to do. It wasn’t as if he could doodle in the margins. There wasn’t any scrap paper for him to make spitballs with, and nothing to launch them if he had them. Leaving the room was strictly forbidden as well, so he continued the tapping.

What he wanted was to be done with this stupid test, be out on the lacrosse field or running on that trail through the park, where he sometimes caught girls skinny-dipping in the creek. Where he’d once joined them. Instead, he was trapped here, staring out the lone window overlooking the field where the soccer team was drilling. Hell, he’d take a soccer ball to dribble over pointing out deliberate grammatical faults.

When the proctor called time, he ceased his tapping and sighed in relief, knowing he had fifteen more minutes of mental occupation before he had to find something better to amuse himself.

---

He sat at the front lab table, rolling the lid of a Petri dish back and forth along the edge of the black countertop, watching it waver as it hit chinks in the surface. Most of the freshmen were happier left to their own devices, anyway. Surveying the room, he saw a trio of fraternity pledges trying to char the bottom of a beaker over a Bunsen burner, laughing as the glass glowed and darkened. A pair of blondes had abandoned their own lab station to join in the laughter, and all eyes not focused on the beaker were definitely on Miss Beakman’s ample cleavage.

Greg just sighed and rolled his eyes, waiting for the clock’s slow hand to sweep around to three and set him free. He had better things to do with his time.

A persistent tapping on the lab table in front of him was easy to ignore, but the hand slamming down on the revolving Petri lid drew his attention. There was a good bit of ample cleavage right in front of him, albeit not well showcased by the baggy sweater and rumpled lab coat the brunette was sporting.

“House? Can you take a look at our experiment? I know what the results should be, and we’ve run it twice and just can’t get it to work.”

The lid flew easily into the air, and she surprised him by catching it. This would occupy a good two minutes of his time. Rising easily from his perch, he swept across the lab to a studious looking gaggle, asking over his shoulder, “What seems to be the problem, Miss Cuddy?”

---

There was an inch of snow still on the sidewalk, not yet scraped aside to join the two feet resting on the grass. He was sure there was frost inside his nose, and with each bouncing step, he exhaled with an equine snort. Even gloved, his fingers were chilled, so as each arm swung in counterbalance to his cautious strides through the snow, he flexed his fingers.

His mother had knitted him the mittens, certainly to deliberately embarrass him, but the thick Irish wool generally did its job and kept his digits toasty while out in the cold winters. This was more than the Irish or Blythe House had planned for, sub-zero cold that cut through wool and down and insulating layers to freeze the marrow.

Moving faster, he felt the crunch of the fresh snow under the treads of his sneakers as his body gyrated across the white expanse, limbs in careful coordination. Gradually as he picked up speed, he could feel circulation painfully returning to extremities, and as he reached a cleared patch of sidewalk, dug into an easy sprint.

---

Crinkling his nose under the paper surgical mask, he bounced from foot to foot, drawing a raised eyebrow from the surgeon across the table.

“All right over there, House?”

“Just fine, Doctor Stone.”

“Hand me that retractor, then. And pay attention, enough with the aerobics moves over there.”

He handed the retractor across the table, somewhat regretting the mask covering his snide frown and wondering when the last time Stone had done more than waddle from his office to the operating theater.

Surgery was boring. There was nothing to figure out, no problem to solve unless something went badly awry. Cut open patient, remove problem, close patient back up. Technically, he knew he was good. He was deft, agile, as precise with a scalpel as Amadeus over the clavier, but there was no challenge in it for him. He was bored.

He would be glad when this rotation was over, and he could get back to finding solutions, not just hacking things out of people.

---

The gun was steady in his hand as he curled himself around the tree trunk and took aim. Just as he squeezed the trigger, green pellet of paint flying true towards the oblivious opponent twenty yards ahead, he felt a sting on his arm.

Whirling, he caught sight of a brunette slipping back behind a holly bush like an evil nymph. In two steps he’d caught her arm, twirling her around and delighting as her dark eyes widened, not in fear, but in challenge.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“You shot me!”

“That is the point, Doctor.”

“House. Greg House.”

“Well, Doctor Greg, if you’ve got a problem with my aim, perhaps we should go dance around the issue somewhere with fewer weapons.”

He slung the paint gun over one shoulder like a soldier on parade and offered her his arm. She kept up with his loping strides through the trees. “If you like dancing, I know just the place.”

---

All he could do was stare up at the bland white ceiling. No patterned tiles to count, no designs to distract him. There were too many drugs in his system to move, and every time he did so, it hurt.

In the dead of night, when things were a little dimmer and a bit less noisy, and his body strained towards something approaching slumber, a shadow slipped over his field of vision. The figure remained just out of his frame of sight, but he caught a glimpse of dark hair as headphones slipped over his ears. After a soft click, the opening of Beethoven’s Third Symphony came crashing down like a wave.

It wasn’t what he would have chosen, but it was intense and complex and let his brain lose itself enough for him to drift towards sleep.

---

Cautiously, he balanced to plates on his arm while gripping half-full mugs in his hands. Five steps from the kitchen to the living room, and the plates wobbled with each unsteady, limping step.

Stacy watched from the sofa, lips pursed to speak, but he just scowled and continued his slow progress. Before, this would have been a thoughtless act, a show of coordination and grace as he delivered her dinner with one hand and a beer with the other.

Now, his other hand held a cane, the traction of which changed as he hit the area rug, causing him to falter. One of the plates wobbled, and slipped down to splatter across the carpeting, pesto obliterating intricate Persian patterns.

“Godammit!” He flung the mugs and other plate against the wall, watching the frothy beer and green sauce streak their way down the eggshell wall.

“Let me—“

“No! I can do it!” He wheeled in frustration, hobbling back to the kitchen and resting his head in his hands for just a moment, before gathering paper towels.

---

The backpack slid down his arm to the floor just as he slid down into the desk chair. He looked at the pile of applications to be sorted through in his in box, then rolled the chair a few feet back from the desk until he could push himself around in a circle.

It was a lot of fun, or at least as close as one could come to a carnival ride in a hospital office, until his right foot slammed into his backpack, sending a jolting reminder up his leg. Coming to an abrupt stop, he rolled back over to the desk and began sifting through applications, creating a small pile of potential candidates, and tossing the rest in the trash.

---

Creating a game whose primary purpose was to bounce a ball against the wall had two advantages. Firstly, it annoyed whoever was on the other side of the wall. Secondly, it gave him something to do besides work.

He really liked these squash racquet he’d borrowed from the team’s current patient. It really let him put a good speed on the ball without the hassle of rising from his desk. He hadn’t played since he was an undergraduate, but the reflexes were still there, and he grinned as the little rubber ball flew easily across his office and back again, aim straight and true, so only his arm moved in an easy forehand-backhand.

After five minutes, Rosen entered with a scowl, glaring at the ball as House caught it handily. “Did you want something, Dr. House, or were you just picking on me again?”

“I wanted to annoy you.” He served the ball with glee, smirking as the furrows on the intern’s face deepened as the ball flew past him

---

He sat at the piano, staring down at the bourbon and Vicodin on the gleaming, lacquered wood before him. Doing his best to ignore their siren call, he focused all his attention on the keys under his fingers.

They danced across with practiced agility, twisting through the violent intricacies of Prokofiev’s Toccata. It was difficult enough when his leg wasn’t demanding attention of its own, and lately he’d been spending too much time with drugs and work and no time at the piano. The musical complexity wasn’t enough to distract from his physical reality.

After missing a few easy notes, he finally slammed his hand down in nothing close to the D minor it was aiming for. With the other hand, he grabbed a pill and the bourbon, chasing the drug with the alcohol.

Resting his forehead on the edge of the music stand for a moment, he drew a few deep breaths, feeling a slight relaxation of his body. When his fingers fell on the keys once more, it was into the simple elegance of a Mozart concerto.

---

Wilson always had toys in his office, though getting into the office to play with them wasn’t easy. Getting over the barrier between their balconies wasn’t too bad on a good day, but most days it was beyond him.

The effort could pay off nicely, though. Between the teddy bears and other schmaltzy knick-knacks, he found an old Magic 8 ball. Idly, he shook it and turned it over to read “Ask Again Later”.

“What are you doing, House?” Wilson didn’t look surprised to see him, just surprised to see him looking at toys.

“Wondering what the question was.”

“You can always hang on to it, ask later.”

“Maybe I’ll do that.”

Only when he reached the divider did he wonder how to juggle a bum leg, a cane, and a plastic orb. With a little creativity, he managed.

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End
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